Let's not beat about the bush - the Nokia N900 is a supremely powerful piece of kit and we want one here at Nintendo Life Towers.

The Finnish manufacturer's latest handset is going head-to-head with Apple's iPhone and Motorola's Droid, and has an amazing amount of tricks up its sleeve - one of which is playing SNES games, if a video released by the company is anything to go by.

The clip demonstrates how retro fans can enjoy the likes of Super Ghouls 'n Ghosts and Super Mario World on their shiny new phone, via the emulator Dr. NokSnes. What's more, other emulators are also hinted at, including ones for the NES, GBA and Game Boy.

Now emulators on mobile phones are nothing new. Nokia's Ovi Store (which the N900 will connect to) already has several available and Google's Android platform also showcases similar SNES, GBA, NES and Mega Drive/Genesis emulating programs. However, these downloads don't come with any games, because it's distributing those that is the illegal part of all this - the actual emulators themselves are perfectly fine.

However, for Nokia to so publicly state that the N900 is capable of such activity - and show a video with illegally downloaded ROMs being played - is a bold and possibly foolhardy move. The footage is clearly intended to prove the N900's capabilities as a portable gaming device, and that means encroaching on territory occupied by Nintendo's DS console. To promote this aspect with Nintendo's own games is cheeky, to say the least.

Nintendo is a company that doesn't take kindly to having any of its copyright broken and seeing as there is no way of legally purchasing SNES games on any other device other than the Wii at present, we imagine that Nintendo's lawyers are probably gleefully sharpening their knives as we speak.

Still, it looks fan-bloody-tastic, I'm sure you'll agree. Perhaps this will make Nintendo reconsider its stance on the DS Virtual Console?

Damien has over a decade of professional writing experience under his belt, as well as a repulsively hairy belly. Rumours that he turned down a role in The Hobbit to work on Nintendo Life are, to the best of our knowledge, completely and utterly unfounded.